Rural residents fight tax assessments
Times Colonist
Published: Saturday, January 19, 2008
Saanich farmers want a moratorium on their hefty property-tax hikes until the B.C. government reviews its controversial new policy for assessing farms.
A crowd of about 200 people packed a public forum in Saanich Friday night to press for a moratorium as the "only fair and reasonable action to take," until the review is complete, organizer Lana Popham said Saturday.
Farmers and politicians fear the large tax increases, if allowed to proceed, could wipe out a number of small farms in Saanich, and force others to clear cut forests or otherwise alter the rural landscape.
"If it's allowed to run its course, it will drive people out of farming," Saanich South NDP MLA David Cubberley said.
The B.C. Assessment Authority last year reassessed 204 Saanich properties outside the Agriculture Land Reserve. The inspections resulted in 22 properties losing their farm status, and 97 receiving split classifications, meaning they'll have to pay residential taxes on areas that are not being "farmed."
The move will add several thousand dollars to farmers' tax bills. In one case, Popham said an organic farmer, who wishes to remain anonymous, saw the assessed value of their farm nearly triple from $328,000 to $816,00.
Faced with a public outcry, Small Business and Revenue Minister Rick Thorpe announced before Christmas that government would set up a panel to review the policy. That panel, however, has yet to be established and the review is expected to take at least a year.
In the meantime, Popham said, it's "business as usual" for the assessment authority, which mailed out the disputed assessments.
"It seems that B.C. Assessment is acting as if farmers are guilty until proven innocent," she said in a release. "This is no way to acknowledge the value of our farmers."
Saanich farmer Robin Tunnicliffe said the assessment authority's definition of what constitutes a farm is too narrow. She and her partner make their entire income off a leased organic fruit and vegetable patch that covers a small portion of a two-hectare property.
The assessment authority hit the property owner with a tax hike because it says the entire property isn't being "farmed." But Tunnicliffe said the authority doesn't seem to understand that there's more to a farm than the cultivated ground. She said their vegetable patch is so productive, it permits them to leave a forest and pond at the back of the property untouched.
"There's all sorts of environmentally important features on that land that are left intact because we concentrate our farming on a small portion," she said. "I love that there's owls that live at the back of the land and they come down and eat our rats. There's quail that come through there, and they wouldn't live there if there weren't hedgerows. And the quail actually eat an important pest of ours called the flea beetle.
"So I think the whole farm - it's beyond the [cultivated] footprint," Tunnicliffe said. "I think that's an important thing that B.C. Assessment is not recognizing."
In many ways, she said farmers provide free stewardship of important greenspace on Vancouver Island. "These areas are not going to stay like that if this assessment goes through," she said. "People are going to be really motivated to cut down trees."
A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Small Business and Revenue said the ministry is still working on the terms of reference and membership for the panel that will review the farm status assessment policy. The ministry is hoping to have the panel in place by the end of this month. The review is expected to take a year to complete.
In the meantime, the ministry is encouraging people to file appeals with the assessment authority by Jan. 31.
lkines@tc.canwest.com
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